COSTA MESA — The Chargers have one of the most prolific passing offenses in the NFL. Through two games, they’ve done it without a top-10 receiver.

Philip Rivers has spread the ball around before, but this year, the veteran quarterback is in charge of what may be the league’s most egalitarian aerial attack.

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Only two teams — Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh — have thrown for more than the Chargers’ 658 yards. Both have produced individual standouts: the Buccaneers’ DeSean Jackson paces the NFL with 275 receiving yards, while teammate Mike Evans ranks ninth; the Steelers’ JuJu Smith-Schuster and Jesse James are fifth and 12th, respectively.

The Chargers, on the other hand? Keenan Allen — the NFL’s third-leading receiver a year ago — languishes at No. 15 with 175 yards.

But three of Allen’s teammates also have at least 100 receiving yards. Two of them are running backs.

“We are going to spread the defense out and try to get the guys the ball who are in the right holes,” Coach Anthony Lynn said.

Through two games, Melvin Gordon and Austin Ekeler have been the ones finding those holes. Rivers has targeted the two runners on 28 of his 78 passes — an astounding 35.9 percent. A year ago, the quarterback only threw to his tailbacks on a roughly a fifth of his pass attempts.

Part of the shift has been due to personnel. A team that has been historically reliant on tight ends lost Hunter Henry to a torn ACL this past May. The Chargers (1-1) brought back Antonio Gates in time for the start of the season, but the 38-year-old wasn’t signed to shoulder a significant workload. After catching a two-point conversion in Week 1, the future Hall of Famer only played 11 snaps in Sunday’s road win over the Bills.

Tight end Virgil Green did catch three passes for 55 yards in Buffalo. But the eighth-year veteran is better known as a blocker, and has only once topped that receiving total in his 102 regular-season appearances.

All of which makes Gordon’s growth as a pass catcher all the more crucial. As an All-America workhorse in college at Wisconsin, he notched just 22 receptions — a total dwarfed by his 631 carries for 4,915 rushing yards. It was a career that led some scouts to question whether or not Gordon could become an adequate receiver at the next level.

That moment appears to have arrived. Gordon’s share of the passing game has swelled since was a rookie in 2015, jumping from 37 targets that year to 83 last season — more looks than any teammate besides Allen. After two weeks, the former first-round pick leads the Chargers with 15 receptions on 20 targets, besting Allen in both categories.

“He’s at a point where he sees the running back as a three-down position — and also, who cares how you get the touches?” Rivers said Sunday. “It’s not a 25-carry, 150-yard league anymore. It’s 16 carries, seven receptions — how many touches does he get for 150?

“I mean, you see it around the league – the best backs, that’s what they do. I think he also has embraced that. ‘Shoot I don’t care if you’re handing it to me, I’m going to run a heck of a route and throw it to me.’”

JAMES IN THE BOX

Derwin James spent most of his regular-season debut at the back of the Chargers defense, roaming the field as a free safety to try and limit Kansas City’s field-stretching playmakers.

On Sunday, the Chargers brought him closer to the line of scrimmage. Again, he excelled.

James led the game with seven solo tackles, including two for loss. One looked like it should have counted as a sack, but no matter — the No. 17 overall pick added another one of those to his stat line anyway. He also pressured Bills quarterback Josh Allen on Buffalo’s third offensive snap, setting up fellow rookie Uchenna Nwosu for a sack.

How Chargers use James moving forward will likely depend on weekly matchups.

“You don’t want to put him in there too much because teams can out-muscle you with bigger personnel on the field,” Lynn said. “I like when he is in the box because I believe he speeds things up for the offense. He’s extremely quick, fast, and very aggressive.”

BLOODY BUT UNBOWED

Buffalo’s Taiwan Jones appears to be doing well after being bloodied by Nwosu on Sunday. On a botched punt return by the Bills, the Chargers linebacker hit Jones in the head after the running back lost his helmet in the end zone.

That brutal hit left Jones face down on the field for several minutes, with blood staining his headband before he eventually walked to the locker room. Buffalo coach Sean McDermott told reporters on Monday that Jones did not suffer a concussion.

Jack Wang covers the Chargers, the latest NFL team to relocate to Los Angeles. He previously covered the Rams, and also spent four years on the UCLA beat, a strange period in which the Bruins' football program often outpaced their basketball team. He is a proud graduate of UC Berkeley, where he spent most of his time in The Daily Californian offices in Eshleman Hall — a building that did not become earthquake-safe until after his time on campus.